Aging Gracefully

Neighborhood Bully

When I was growing up, Wayne was my neighbor. Wayne, heavy at times, was a little bigger and a little older than the rest of us. He was the neighborhood bully.

Wayne was the kid who would lure me into playing with him because he was always into something new and interesting, like building a remote-controlled model car, catching lightning bugs, or something like that. But no matter what the activity, by the day’s end, Wayne was bullying me in one way or another.

Typically, it wasn’t hard bullying. It was soft bullying, like daring me to do something stupid, or teasing me, or cheating me out of a win, or running me over with his lawnmower. He was the first kid with a riding lawnmower, so I was naturally curious…

There was also that time we played frog-jumping, and he shot me across the yard. I landed oddly and broke my wrist. At least the resulting cast was small and everyone signed it.

He also seemed to enjoy telling me tales of a neighborhood ghost and the haunted creek — the creek that r…